resizing slices Post: 33179

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers resizing slices Post 33179 by RTM on Wednesday 18th of December 2002 02:14:26 PM

12-18-2002

Registered User

You didn't lose your data dumping to the same disk since you didn't format (changing the sizes of the partitions). You are attempting to 'get around' the normal way of doing things (not wrong mind you...that is something we all try).

But, the problem is this. You aren't running Solaris 8 on a SUN system which would allow this. You are running X86. And according to SUN, it can't be done.

Quote:

[cpj@west 5/24/96]
The install program has always provided a feature to allow choosing which
slice will contain which partition. The root and swap partition can be located
anywhere. devconf appears to have a hardcoded ":a" in the constructed bootpath
which breaks this feature. Pehaps there's a swap limitation as well?

This feature can be used to allow multiple solaris versions to install on a
single
disk. By preserving the old filesystems, and installing into new slices, both
installations can be held on one disk (and switched between by setting
the appropriate root partition to type "root" with the format program).

In any event, the root partition should be determined as the other boot
stages do, by examing the vtoc for the first "root" partition.

The description field as copied from bug report 1261782 follows:

If a system is installed with the root filesystem on a slice other than slice 0,
the
installed system cannot be booted.

An attempt to boot from the hard drive will cause this screen to be displayed:

SunOs Secondary Boot version 3.00

<bootdev>:a: can't open - too many open devices
prom_panic: Could not mount filesystem.

use Ctl-Alt-Del to reboot

An attempt to boot using the boot floppy will cause these messages to appear:

Unable to mount a Solaris root filesystem from device:

......

/isa/ata@`,1f0/cmdk@0,0:a: can't open - slice not allocated
/isa/ata@`,1f0/cmdk@0,0:a: can't open - too many open devices

I tested this by installing an IDE system with the root on slice 7. I also
tried
a system with a buslogic ISA adapter with the root on slice 7. These systems
work fine if the root is on slice 0.
Work Around Top

The work around field as copied from bug report 1261782 follows:

Install with root on slice 0.

So you are back to square 1. You can either backup your data to tape, format the drive, and dump the tape back on, OR, reinstall from scratch. I don't believe there are any other choices.

One thing you might try...

IF your swap partition is set up right next to your root partition (on slice 1), you could cut a piece from slice 7 {insure you restored your data first that you put there onto the correct slice [0]} to move swap to. Then you could increase the size of your root partition....all this is dependent on what your partitions look like (please post how you had it set up originally and how it is set up now).

RTM

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cmdk

cmdk(7D)							      Devices								  cmdk(7D)

NAME

       cmdk - common disk driver

SYNOPSIS

       cmdk@target, lun : [ partition | slice ]

DESCRIPTION

       The  cmdk  device  driver  is  a  common interface to various disk devices. The driver supports magnetic fixed disks and magnetic removable
       disks.

       The block-files access the disk using the system's normal buffering mechanism and are read and written  without	regard	to  physical  disk
       records. There is also a "raw" interface that provides for direct transmission between the disk and the user's read or write buffer. A sin-
       gle read or write call usually results in one I/O operation; raw I/O is therefore considerably more efficient when many bytes are transmit-
       ted. The names of the block files are found in /dev/dsk; the names of the raw files are found in /dev/rdsk.

       I/O  requests  to the magnetic disk must have an offset and transfer length that is a multiple of 512 bytes or the driver returns an EINVAL
       error.

       Slice 0 is normally used for the root file system on a disk, slice 1 as a paging area (for example, swap), and slice 2 for backing  up  the
       entire fdisk partition for Solaris software. Other slices may be used for usr file systems or system reserved area.

       Fdisk partition 0 is to access the entire disk and is generally used by the fdisk(1M) program.

FILES

       /dev/dsk/cndn[s|p]n     block device (IDE)

       /dev/rdsk/cndn[s|p]n    raw device (IDE)

			       where:

			       cn	controller n

			       dn	lun n (0-7)

			       sn	UNIX system slice n (0-15)

			       pn	fdisk partition(0)

       /kernel/drv/cmdk        32-bit kernel module.

       /kernel/drv/amd64/cmdk  64-bit kernel module.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Architecture		     |x86			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       fdisk(1M), mount(1M), lseek(2), read(2), write(2), readdir(3C), scsi(4), vfstab(4), attributes(5), dkio(7I)

SunOS 5.10							    9 Oct 2004								  cmdk(7D)